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For Timothy Hutton, ‘Crime’ pays off

Oscar winner Timothy Hutton stars in the new ABC drama “American Crime.”Todd Wawrychuk/ABC/Getty Images/ABC

Timothy Hutton has built an enviable career since winning a best supporting actor Oscar at age 20 for his first film role in the acclaimed 1980 family drama “Ordinary People.”

Hutton.Todd Wawrychuk/ABC/Getty Images/ABC/Getty Images

The California native, who spent part of his childhood in Cambridge and Arlington, has run the gamut of genres, platforms, and characters. He has tackled gritty drama and broad comedy, big-budget and independent films, splashy television movies and pulpy series, and the Broadway stage. It’s a resume that spans 70 roles, from his recent TNT caper series “Leverage” to the beloved ensemble film “Beautiful Girls.”

One constant in Hutton’s career has been his desire to work with strong actors and directors. So he’s pleased to be part of a formidable cast on the new ABC drama “American Crime,” which premieres Thursday night at 10. Created by Oscar-winning “12 Years a Slave” screenwriter John Ridley, who also wrote and directed several of the 11 episodes, the series is an in-depth look at what happens to the families connected to a murder, on both sides of the crime, diving deeply into issues of race, class, and faith.

Hutton, who plays Russ Skokie, the father of the murder victim, joins a cast that includes Felicity Huffman (“Desperate Housewives”), Regina King (“Southland”), Benito Martinez (“The Shield”), W. Earl Brown (“True Detective”), and Penelope Ann Miller (“Men of a Certain Age”).

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We recently caught up with Hutton — who gave a shout-out to Belmont Day School, where he was a student — by phone from New York to discuss his long career and his new life of “Crime,” about which he says: “It was the right project at the right time with the right people in the right location. Just everything about it came together so nicely.”

Q. Often when the word “crime” is in the title of a show, it’s about solving a specific case. But this series is less about whodunit than the consequences for the families surrounding the case, elements we don’t normally see on crime shows. Was that part of what appealed to you?

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A. Yes, that’s exactly right. It’s a show about the people that are intimately involved with the crime itself: the victims, the suspects, and their families. It really gets into how these families are affected, how the community is affected, and how people tend to make assumptions and take positions based on those assumptions and the frustrations that come out of not getting easy answers about what happened and who did it.

Q. This is not escapism, it’s dark, and in some ways it’s plugged into current discussions about race, faith, and class in this country, which must be an interesting thing to play.

A. That’s right. So often in the news we hear about the event, we hear about the accusations, we hear about the anger coming out of the community that something didn’t happen the right way, that people weren’t treated the right way, and this show gets into a lot of that. But this show also gets into the things we don’t hear about: What are the discussions in the living rooms, kitchens, and bedrooms of the families connected to the crime? And what are they going to do when asked to take certain positions? And it also gets into how people mourn loss in very different ways.

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Q. You and Felicity Huffman played estranged ex-spouses who get into some very thorny issues, both personal and political. What was it like having her as your primary scene partner?

A. I’m just incredibly lucky that Felicity was the one playing that character because she is so deeply talented and such an incredible person to be around, so smart and just an amazing presence. We had a lot of complicated, difficult scenes to play. I would say it was probably one of the best experiences I’ve ever had with another actor.

Q. Well she’s definitely not on Wisteria Lane anymore, and it certainly is a change of pace for you from “Leverage.”

A. [Laughs.] We all had a great time making that show, and our main goal was trying to get the other person to not make it through a take and get them to a laugh. That show really needed a kind of lightness in the space to make it all work.

Q. They are calling “American Crime” an anthology series, so that means it will just be this one season and if it comes back it will be a new set of characters and story next year, like “True Detective.”

A. Yes. It originally started off that it was going to be one year, and that was going to be it. And then halfway through filming, ABC and John Ridley started to think, depending on what happens, that it might be interesting to maybe do something else for a second year. So, it’s something that’s been thought about. Nothing’s been organized as of yet, but it sure would be interesting to go back with the same group of people. It would be a different city, a different crime, a different event, and a whole new group of characters that would have nothing to do with the first season, which was always intended to be 11 episodes, over and out.

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Timothy Hutton plays the father of a murder victim in “American Crime.”Van Redin/abc

Q. And you would be open to that?

A. I would. I think everybody involved in the show would be interested in doing that.

Q. What’s next?

A. Ed Burns wrote and directed a really interesting series for TNT called “Public Morals.” It’s set in the mid-’60s in New York City and what they called the public morals division, which was basically the vice squad. I play a guy named Mr. O who is a very dangerous Irish gangster who controls all the gambling in New York in the area around 9th Avenue.

Q. You have played so many different characters over the years. When people stop you on the street, which titles pop up the most?

A. Lately, it’s been a lot of “Leverage.” There’s a lot of “Beautiful Girls.” And “Taps” and “Falcon and the Snowman” and “Turk 182.” “Ordinary People” always seems to be part of that as well. It’s a really good feeling to hear appreciation from people that have just for the first time seen a film like “Ordinary People.” It’s nice to get a letter from someone who is in high school and their teacher showed the class “Ordinary People” and [hear] how much it meant to them and touched them and helped them understand certain things about their lives. That’s incredible.

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Q. Speaking of which, where do you keep your Oscar?

A. Well, it’s moved probably as much as I have in my lifetime. Years ago my sister was in town in New York and we were having a little get-together, which sort of expanded quite a bit, and before the first couple of guests arrived, she said “Hey, let’s put your Oscar in the refrigerator.” And that’s where it stayed for a really long time, I’m talking like six years. [Laughs.] He had plenty to eat, privacy. We’d say [to guests] “Get yourself a beer,” and then it would be “Oh wow!” Now it’s on a bookshelf, but in a very discreet spot so that it’s not obvious.


Interview has been edited and condensed. Sarah Rodman can be reached at srodman@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @GlobeRodman.